Farm Building

My latest paintings are of a farm building taken from a photo found on the web. The website is here: http://www.geograph.org.uk/, the idea behind the website is to catalogue photos of every square mile of the UK. It's quite handy for reference material.

Here's the photo I'm using:

I decided to do a quick sketch to 'just have a go' - to get warmed up and used to the brush:

I decided then to do a thumbnail tonal sketch to get a better idea of tone and composition:

Here's the next version of the painting. I felt happier with this composition, and happy with the feel of the trees.. but as I got to the foreground I already felt that I wanted to do another version, so I kind-of rushed the fence just to finish the painting and get on with the next one!

Here's the final version. A bit muddy and the blue sky is way too bold. It has a certain amount of colour harmony to it I think from the old Steve Cronin technique of wetting the paper all over and slapping a load of raw sienna on first. It has a dusky feel to it.. I think I might call this version "Farm building at dusk with midday sun on the field!!" ha ha.

I used masking fluid for the sheep and water trough, and also for the building itself, so I could paint the background trees wet-in-wet without worrying about the edges of the building. I also masked out the fence on the right. The grasses were scratched out of the wet paint using a piece of plastic card.

I have a few more paintings of still life to upload but I don't have them to hand at the moment - I left them round my folks place..

See you next time and thanks for reading.

Ian.